Justin Timberbrakes

Come in on four

Justin Timberbrakes reaches the school ten minutes ahead of the student who has ninety seconds of music to get through before the rest of the group comes in. He takes a rubber practice pad out of the cupboard. It hangs level when he carries it with a stick in each hand, something several younger pupils have found reason to check. The girl begins too loudly every time so far. Justin asks her to tell him when she noticed. He gives her another minute of warm-up after she says she heard it halfway through the first beat. He had teachers who would have taken the sticks away. He likes to hang back until the person doing the work notices what they're hearing.

Since he started earning money from those lessons and helping repair instruments in Fernwood Hollow, Justin has been able to keep his Acura 1997 Integra at his own address. Their first group director, who stood at the front before Justin was tall enough to see him over the bass drum, still has room for it if Justin takes too many instruments home.

The second join

At DGM Justin counted track joins by tapping on the workbench and had a good enough map to call the second one from the gate. One afternoon he had the sound and missed the turn. He had expected a rhythm based on his two earlier passes. Somebody had been kind enough to point out that he'd tried a different line, coming off the first corner with the Integra at a different angle. He wanted to convince them the two runs felt identical because the sound he could remember was identical. Against his better instincts he replayed a recording for Gar Samu-el and compared it to a slower one. They both heard the difference at once.

He uses a small rubber pad now since he got tired of checking which nails were loose in the top of the workbench. You can hear the strong tap he uses to remember the rougher join. The next beat is where he usually gives himself enough slack to let the car straighten. It has taken a while to allow for how long that actually takes on an inside line.

One observation each

A closed-course test got him close enough to Saffron Veer to ask what she'd seen. There was a very specific steering movement she could describe from the fence. Justin remembered a much smoother version from behind his own wheel. He tried framing the same sort of detail for her on her next pass. Talking that way made him listen for each half of the rhythm with different ears. When he tells the story at school the younger children look at him as if he has hit a drum in an unfamiliar place and they all want a go.

He wants to reach the moment when he can choose how to use one extra beat before the final marker without losing the shape of the run. He can rehearse that alone. It sounds much better when somebody else waits there to hear what he did.

After the last pupil

Some evenings he takes the unused practice pad out of the cupboard and keeps it out just long enough for the cleaner to start stacking the chairs. This evening the girl with the long solo is waiting around to ask what the bright noise in the second recording was. Justin can let her hear it without telling her where. He's keeping the good sticks out for the next minute or so.